新年快樂 PV Elijah Huang Finished

February 4th. A day that Elijah had both dreaded and awaited with eager anticipation, a churning turmoil awakening itself in his stomach. It was a day that he was constantly reminded of through letters from his mother, his sister, and both his grandmothers. Honestly, he was more surprised that his grandmothers were both still alive than that they had bothered to write letters to him with 紅包 filled with 人民幣 (what was he even supposed to do with that?). Not that he was complaining, either.

February 4th was a Monday this year, meaning that he couldn't dress in street clothes in class, but had to settle with wearing new shoes with red laces during the day. People had given him strange stares, considering that he was in Slytherin and not Gryffindor, but they could all suck it he was honoring his goddamn ancestors screw house loyalty it was only one day the sneks could deal with it. His mother would've been disappointed to see him, not wearing as much red as he knew he should've. However, she'd been thoughtful enough to include an entirely new outfit with her latest parcel to her son, including even shoes, even glasses frames, all in varying yet harmonious shades of red. His mother spared no expense when it came to Chinese New Year, and for the first time, Elijah wouldn't be eating his mother's delicious cooking tonight. Instead, he would have to go to the kitchens, in an attempt to persuade the house-elves to make food suitable for a mainlander on this special holiday.

對不起，媽媽。你知道... 你已經知道我想你。

He needed to check out a book. A book on house-elves. His parents never believed in using house-elves, regarding it as something barely above servitude and slavery, and thus he knew next to nothing about these gentle creatures. He had encountered a few at Rhea's estate over the summer, but even then, they seemed to be shy and hadn't made any effort to converse with the young boy. Research would be the only way to remedy this unfortunate gap in his knowledge, and the library was the greatest instigator and encourager of research into the unknown. Now that classes were over and it was nearly dinnertime, Elijah had discarded his robe and chose to wear his street clothes instead, a dark red sweater that would make most assume that he belonged to Gryffindor rather than Slytherin. Plodding to the library, he pushed his glasses higher up on his nose as he pushed open the doors to the library.

Fingering the jade pendant that hung from the violently red string around his neck, Elijah sought strength from his guardian as he analyzed the library, deciding on where he should check first. House-elves... in the Dewey Decimal system, he would've checked the 900's first, but he supposed he'd just go to the history section. Opting to forgo claiming a table for his quick research, he hefted his book bag higher onto his shoulder to keep it from slipping as he walked. He met no one's eyes, his own pitch-black irises glued to the ground as his feet tripped over themselves in too-big shoes to the history section of the library. In particular, he was searching for Hogwarts, A History, but he would take what he could get... However, a dark head, with hair like his, caught his eye as he passed by the tables to search the shelves, and he bit his lip as he tried to see what the girl was doing.

書法... She was practically calligraphy. Not just any calligraphy, but Chinese calligraphy- words that he knew and recognized. He paused, nearly tripping over thin air, but managed to right himself, narrowly avoiding making a complete fool of himself. He paused, closer to the shelves than the tables- he knew she couldn't have, wouldn't have seen him yet. He squinted slightly, even with his glasses, double-checking that it was indeed Chinese calligraphy. It was, although it was written in Traditional Chinese, not the Simplified version he had been taught... still, it was fairly easy to guess at the words, as she had written mostly famous poems that most people knew. Some of them, however, seemed to be originals, or obscure poems from obscure poets. Thinking, he wracked his brain for a proper greeting to introduce himself.

Without thinking (he seemed to be doing that more and more often, this not-thinking thing), Elijah stepped forward, and quietly, he said, "鵝鵝鵝... 曲項向天歌。白毛浮綠水..." If she truly knew Chinese, she would certainly know this poem. It was one of the simplest, most childish poems that everyone knew, and it was the first thing that had come to Elijah's mind. Of course, he could just say the traditional 恭喜發財, or maybe even push it and try out a 新年快樂 if he felt adventurous, but of course, he just had to pick the nerdiest way possible to introduce himself to someone he wasn't even sure was Chinese... What would his mother say if she saw his manners and etiquette now? She would choke.

He could only hope that she wouldn't be startled by his prescence. His hand flew to his chest again, his thumb rubbing over and over in little circles across the green jade, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed nervously. He couldn't remember the last time that he'd been this nervous about someone's reaction- normally, he was so full of himself, so sure of each and every word he said. But for the first time in his life, the Chinese he had spoken didn't sound good enough. Elijah sounded fake, like a British child simply trying to imitate his parents and his grandparents. He could hear the accent lining his vowels and his consonants, although his 音調 was pretty spot-on. His eyes fluttering shut for just a moment, his mind raced to ten and back again, counting to sooth his fraying nerves.

His eyelids flying open again, Elijah cleared his throat quietly, waiting expectantly. Would the girl catch on? Or was he just making a fool of himself- again?

Translations ↴
紅包 = 红包 = Red envelopes (used to give money during Chinese New Year)
人民幣 = 人民币 = Renminbi (national currency of mainland China)
對不起，媽媽 = 对不起，妈妈 = Sorry, mom
你知道... 你已經知道我想你 = 你知道... 你已经知道我想你 = You know... you already know I miss you
書法 = Calligraphy
鵝鵝鵝，曲項向天歌。白毛浮綠水 = 鹅鹅鹅，曲项向天歌。白毛浮绿水 = O geese/swan, you arch your neck and sing your sweet song to the sky. Your white feathers float on green water with ease...
恭喜發財 = 恭喜发财 = The thing you say to people during Chinese New Year- kind of like "Trick-or-treat" for Halloween
新年快樂 = 新年快乐 = Happy New Year
音調 = 音调 = Tone, in this case refers to the tone of the vowels

Reducio

Elijah's clothes!! What a fancy lil' boy...

"Ecastor!"

The Latin exclamation was ripped from her as she jumped at the sound of another's voice, spine crackling disdainfully as it snapped into straightness abruptly. Apparently her wish to be left alone—for once, mind you—would never be fulfilled. Greyish ink dripped haltingly back onto the paper she held her brush over, a side effect of using too much water and not enough inkstick, jarred into motion by her own sudden movement. The end of her last character trailed off to the side, drawn away and wasting a fourth of her parchment—her expensive parchment, not that price had been a problem for quite a long time.

While Cel grumbled to herself in a disgruntled mental soliloquy, some conscious part of her mind began to register what words had actually interrupted her peaceful silence. She had been writing in Chinese for so long that she'd not recognized the language change, was so irritated by the presence of another that she had yet to look up at him at all. Now she did, seeing a boy donning red in contrast to her deep blue dress embroidered with crimson embellishment, and searched her memory, dizzy from the calm. "...紅掌撥清波," the young girl finished after a moment of thought, scarlet tracing fingernails along her cheeks as she realized that it had seemed as if she'd taken the entire time to remember that one phrase: red feet stirring crystal waves across the lake's surface.

Cel hadn't seen many other eastern asians, or asians at all for that matter, since she'd come to Hogwarts—not that it bothered her, of course. They were in Europe. Obviously there would be less of her own ethnicity. Actually, the only ones she remembered seeing before this one instance were her two professors of Transfiguration and History of Magic, Professor Lian, or whatever she was called that day, and Professor Risa, respectively. She herself was only half Taiwanese, not fully, although she looked the part enough to be assumed that way by many others. Perhaps the only things that gave her paternal heritage away were her heterochromatic eyes, or the natural waves texturing her raven-feather hair. Other than those, her appearance was decisively Chinese, right down to the intricately woven knot that held the top layer of hair in place behind her head. The tassel slipped to one side over her sea of black hair as she turned her gaze.

Right, the poem—that was... she'd just written that. "詠鵝," the young Ravenclaw remembered, settling back into the correct language. Chinese had been one of her first extra languages, one she had learned especially quickly due to her fluency before... well. Before obliviate had happened. And honestly, writing traditional was a pain, but she'd grown accustomed to the incomprehensible grammar and lack of verb tenses a long time ago. Her accent was tinged with the slightest edge of Taiwanese, 捲舌 reduced just enough to be noticeable and her timbre off from the normal, dare she call it crass if she was impolite enough, mainland pronunciation, but other than that, no trace of American or British crept through. The only thing that gave her away was her still-faulty word choice.

The girl set down her brush, newly aware of the blackness plopping down to spot her parchment in speckles, and folded her hands. "嚇我一跳， Cel muttered, at a loss for what else to say. Then she began to panic. Did that seem too forward? Was it impolite? Should she have inquired further or given a more formal greeting? Was her Chinese all right? She shoved the questions aside, plowing forward stubbornly even as her mind clawed futilely at the words making their way to her tongue. “您... 會講中文啊？”

Stupid, stupid, stupid, her subconscious whined in castigation of herself. Well, obviously he did speak Chinese, if he had just recited three lines of that poem. But maybe it could be passed off as a valid thought aloud? "新年快樂，" she offered in a likely useless attempt to save herself from yet another awkward, incommodesticus situation. Really, the young girl was beginning to get tired of those—they did bore quite easily.

But a small question had begun growing in the corner of her whirlwind of thought, small enough that she had barely noticed and acknowledged its existence before it was almost making its way off of her vocal cords, body leaning forward just slight of an inch before she pulled it back. Queries could wait until later. Somehow a tendril of self-consciousness had crept into what was about to be a peaceful night, and an inward sigh resigned her to her fate, but that didn't mean the intrusion wouldn't make somewhat of an interesting story to tell. Maybe the company of one who did actually understand the Lunar Calendar—ecastor, she hoped the unknown boy did and that she wasn't just making a fool of herself—was what she needed right now.

Clearly, the girl reassured herself, he wasn't blind to the new year, at least, judging from his clothing. Or maybe she was over-analyzing again, an idea that came to her in the form of her stepmother Svana's disapproving tone. Every way to introduce herself in Chinese or even with a switch to English that she could think of seemed strange and unfitting for her purposes, an issue that both distressed and relieved her at the same time, for if she did not introduce herself first, perhaps the boy in red would. Was she supposed to make her way over to the shelves? No, civil or not, it was honestly just too much work to push out her chair and not knock over all her things and walk over, all the while making it look graceful and not... well. Not something that she was too busy thinking to remember. Interaction really was so complicated, complicated being a mild adjective to describe it. Instead, Cel beckoned slightly toward him, jade bracelet rocking cool against the pale skin of her wrist, inviting him to join her at her table. Perhaps a good idea, perhaps a bad one, but at least it was something—an invitation of sorts, to continue the conversation. Svana would be proud.

Reducio

紅掌撥清波 - red feet (referring to the swan's feet) churn crystalline waves across the lake's surface
詠鵝 - O Swan (title of the poem)
捲舌 - a certain quality of pronunciation
嚇我一跳 - you/something/it/whatever idk scared me
您會講中文啊 - you speak Chinese?
新年快樂 - happy CNY
Ecastor - an expression of surprise or emphasis
Incommodesticus - a difficult-to-translate term, an awkward or untimely situation

Whatever exclamation that had exploded from the small girl's mouth after his random burst of poetry was not in English, and clearly not in Chinese. Elijah quickly backed up, afraid that he had jumped to the wrong conclusions too quickly. He knew that pride came before a fall, and perhaps he had been too cocky and overly confident going into this situation, and this was just what he deserved; suffering at the hands of not being able to understand like everyone else on this planet. He hadn't ever imagined having to be like everyone else, so... depressingly average. The feeling was both new and uncomfortable, and he certainly didn't appreciate it. But no, she was Chinese. She had to be Chinese. She was writing Chinese calligraphy, for cripes' sake!

He breathed a quiet sigh of relief, however, when the girl finished the poem. He noted her tone (flawless) and her clothes (flawless), a small smile lighting up his face. He had been right, after all, and it paid off. Tugging on the hem of his sleeve, he took in the girl's much nicer clothing, the clothes that were so much more traditional than his. She wore a 结 in her hair, the same type of traditional knotting that held his necklace in place. His hand flew to his necklace again, as if checking to make sure his guardian was still there. Her accent when she spoke, however... she wasn't a mainlander. Well, that was okay- at least he had someone who sort of understood his heartache, even if it wasn't as exact.

He nodded briefly as she identified the homework, with a quiet, "是的," although he wasn't sure if she would actually hear him. He could feel his skin getting warmer from his nervousness, although he wouldn't flush red until he got truly embarrassed. She continued to talk, admitting that he had frightened her, to which he laughed softly, a rueful grin crossing his face. There were times when he truly could look like a boy again, not someone who seemed older and wiser than he actually was. 

"我可以," Elijah said, confirming the answer to the girl's inquiry on whether he truly spoke Chinese or not. He supposed that it wasn't really necessary to ask that, considering that he had just spouted off several lines of poetry, but confirmation couldn't hurt. "您為什麼會叫我‘您’，呢？我還比您小一年，吧," he added with a wry smile. The small subtleties between 您 and 你 were used to differentiate between someone your age and your seniors, and he knew for a fact that this girl was not in his year. He would've noticed someone else with dark hair if they had shown up in his class, and he had never seen her face before today. Well, maybe he had, but he didn't recognize her off the top of his head.

He nodded again, dumbly feeling like a bobblehead, as she wished him a happy new year. That should've been the first thing he said to her, and he cursed himself inwardly for forgetting his manners. "新年快樂- 恭喜發財," he added, clasping his left hand around his right and bowing his head in her direction. Hesitantly, looking up and dropping his hands to his sides, he made his way over to the girl's table. Remaining standing, he glanced down at his feet briefly before looking up and adding, "你的裙子好漂亮... 你的頭髮的結也好美麗。"

Shifting his weight from foot to foot, the deep blue fabric of the girl's dress couldn't help but remind Elijah of his sister with a heart-breaking pang of nostalgia. It was something that she would've worn, symbolizing her house and her heritage all at once. Celestine would've absolutely worn just the dress to class, defying the rules of the required uniform and insisting that if Christmas got a break from school, she should at least be allowed to wear her holiday's appropriate clothing. It had always been a passionate topic of Celynne's to persuade the school to give a two-week break during the duration of 春节, even if it was a losing fight. Schools gave enough breaks from school as it was, but she still thought it was unfair that Christianity got a holiday while the Chinese were still forced to attend school during the most important holiday of their culture.

He didn't even realize he was crying until he felt the first of the tears start to run down his cheeks. Hurriedly, he turned his face away, wiping the tears away hastily and trying to get his breath under control. How embarrassing, crying in front of a complete stranger... but the thought and memory of his sister, his sister who wasn't here by his side, had sent him over the edge. He could feel the pain radiating from the heavy absence of his family, the pressure closing around his heart like a hand and squeezing tight. He could hear the screaming noise of an alarm, growing louder and louder in his mind, his precious and beautiful mind...

His hand shot out and gripped the back of the chair across from the girl, his hand clenched until the skin across his knuckles turn white, as if the chair was his only anchor to reality. Squeezing his eyes shut, he choked out, his voice tight, "I- I'm sorry, it's just... you look... 你跟我的姐姐看起来是一模一样的。"

This was so embarrassing. How could he just completely fall apart in front of a stranger? Even if the stranger reminded him so much of his sister, he wasn't allowed to lose his composure... maybe it was just because it was tonight. A night that was meant to be spent with your family, with the people that you loved; a night that symbolized renewal, redemption, and reunion. It wasn't the first Chinese New Year that Elijah had spent without his sister, but it was the first away from his parents. He probably looked like a fool in front of this girl who was so put together, so poised and elegant. He ordinarily wasn't one to get homesick, either, but tonight had just triggered something that he hadn't realized existed. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes again, trying to regain control over himself.

Translations↴
是的 = Yes
我可以 = I can
您為什麼會叫我‘您’，呢？我還比您小一年，吧 = 您为什么会叫我‘您’，呢？我还比您小一年，吧 = Why did you (formal) call me 'you (formal)'? I am still a year younger than you (formal).
新年快樂- 恭喜發財 = 新年快乐- 恭喜发财 = Happy New Year- (and according to Google Translate) Kung Hei Fat Choi
你的裙子好漂亮... 你的頭髮的結也好美麗 = 你的裙子好漂亮... 你的头发的结也好美丽 Your dress is very pretty... your knot in your hair is very beautiful, too
你跟我的姐姐看起來是一模一樣的 = 你跟我的姐姐看起来是一模一样的 = You look exactly the same as my sister
您 = You (formal)
你 = You (informal)

舉目無親。

Cel tilted her head just slightly as the boy queried her choice of words. Honestly, she didn't much know the difference. Most of the time her classes were spent with her nose buried in some book or getting admonished for her lack of attention to the lecturer at hand—if asked to list the people in any class, she'd likely only be able to name those to her immediate left or right, maybe a couple more than that. But even if he was a First Year, there was a good chance that he was still older than her. Curse the late cutoff day and her anomalous birthday. ”我的生日比較晚；您可能還是比我大幾月。“ In all honestly, she didn't much mind her youth. It gave her an excuse, and she'd always been and would likely stay as the younger sibling.

As the red-clad boy dipped his head in her direction, the young Ravenclaw set her brush back upon the rest to assure the safety of her parchment and repeated the gesture, despite her already spoken greetings. That would... probably come across as strange, to have the words and the motion separate, but too late. She folded her hands back into her lap, silken fabric of her dress brushing her skin lightly. Her chin dipped again in accepting response to his returned Chinese well-wishes, and she turned her gaze to his shoes—always shoes, some people she recognized with the sight of shoes rather than facial features—and fiddled with the dark blue silk in nervous thought. In her defense, they were quite interesting shoes. Kind of like boots, but not really, with bright red laces as contrasting ornaments... for someone who stared at footwear all day, Cel definitely didn't know much about the terminology.

Her gaze did not lift past his shoulders as he complimented her choice of clothing and the knot in her hair, but her left pointer finger raised and tapped a couple times, and she allowed a small smile to grace her face. Something about staring people in the eyes seemed averse to the young girl, but she had no problem looking elsewhere, maybe just to seem as if she was looking into someone's face. This boy's clothing boasted red ubiquitously—red shirt, red glasses, and of course those vibrant scarlet shoelaces—but she still doubted the jump that her mind had immediately made to the conclusion that he was a Gryffindor. On any other day she would think so, deem it a safe belief to follow and correct later, but today was the New Year; everyone—that is, everyone who celebrated—would want to wear red. Why, she herself had lingered over the debate of blue or red just hours earlier, but had chosen the blue so as to not be mistakenly taken for a Gryffindor, the exact same argument she used on herself now. Perhaps it would be better if houses were not mentioned at all.

Only now did she deign to look up, after a quiet moment of soliloquy, when Cel realized that silence had passed for too long. He was... crying. That would be classified as unexpected. Once again she was incommodus, why did these things always happen to Cel and Cel alone? Her mental grumbling ceased after a few seconds, and she shifted in her seat, hands uncrossing uncertainly. Now... how exactly was one supposed to deal with a near stranger who started crying in the middle of a conversation that she was, or at least had been, more or less certain wouldn't constitute any particularly emotional reaction, at least to this level? Although her heart ached in sympathy—crying in front of others without intending to was never fun—she really had no clue how she was supposed to react. This assuredly wasn't on the study guide.

Cel even momentarily flinched back, the motion small enough to be imperceptible to a passing eye, as the boy—whose name was still unknown—clutched the back of her chair tightly in a fist. That action, right there, communicated an emotion that she knew and felt—that was even further confirmed with the next words that came out of his mouth. She sympathized; not an emotion she felt often.

Tonight was Chinese New Year. Tonight was reuniting with family. Tonight was praying to ancestors. Tonight was a big dinner, laughing while surrounded by memories, the smell of oriental food abound. It wasn't supposed to be spent lolling around in a library, stone walls keeping children from family. In her case, there was less to be nostalgic about. The father she'd known for the first seven years of her life was not such a father. The mother who raised her had been kept from her since three years, then gone forever, and even the specter of her soul wasn't enough to bring her back completely. The next parental figure was likely the one closest to her, and the next two—well, one was awkward and distant, while the other, well, seemed to love her but disagreed with her values and even more her brother.

Yeah, her family was messed up.

But missing a sibling she could understand. Cel hadn't known Dorian for a good part of her life, but they were more tightly woven than some siblings who grew up together. Even if he wasn't gone, per se, and was most definitely present, the distance between them was apparent—his household, which she couldn't think of calling her own household just yet, had not practiced the celebration of Chinese New Year since her arrival. Even then, they didn't fully understand it. So there were still miles of disparity, where hiraeth took over, nostalgia for something that never existed.

There was still the question of how exactly to deal with this, though. Clearly he hadn't meant to lose his composure. He likely felt as she would have in his shoes—embarrassed, trying to stop, doing his best to stay calm. Now... what to do? ”呼吸，“ the Ravenclaw echoed a memory of her mother so long ago. “沒有關係。靜下來。“ Breathe. It's all right. The words sounded a little fake in her own mind, but perhaps to others they would not be, for the mind of a perfectionist calls critique to every word she utters. Dare she risk resting a hand on a shoulder? No, that was weird. That was a strange thought in itself. ...whatever.

Maybe he'd feel more at ease if they switched to English. He had briefly slipped into the language before flipping back into Chinese, after all, and if he replied in Chinese, she could follow easily. "Um—what's your name?" Cel asked tentatively, twisting the jade bracelet between her fingers. The cool, reassuring groundedness of stone calmed her jumpy nerves discreetly. A proper introduction seemed appropriate at this point, or—or should it have been earlier, and was this awkward?

Ugh. Etiquette was strange.

舉目無親 = Chinese idiom, stranger in a strange land
我的生日比較晚；您可能還是比我大幾月= my birthday is late, you might still be older than me by a couple of months
呼吸 = breathe
沒有關係 = it's all right
靜下來 = calm down

Staring at the girl in front of him as she explained her age to Elijah, his eyes narrowed slightly in vague suspicion. Hogwarts definitely didn't let people under 11 attend, so there was definitely no way that she was older than him. However, he supposed that he should've taken it as a compliment that he was mature enough and looked old enough to pass off for someone older than he actually was. He supposed it was a mistake that many people made, especially since it was an insane (and pretty accurate) stereotype that Asians tended to look the same, no matter the age.

Was that racist? That felt racist. Crap.

She seemed to take it all rather well, considering that he was... you know, crying. It wasn't every day that you had to deal with strangers bursting into tears in front of you, especially here at a place like Hogwarts. He sniffed slightly, regretting the choice instantly as he was immediately disgusted by the noise it made. The last time he had cried like this would have been the day Lia had died, and he forgot about the rather obnoxious fact that tears also drained out through your nose, hence why people's noses ran while they were crying. It was, after all, simply basic anatomy.

Such examples of hard and rigid facts placated Elijah, and his breathing began to even out, rather than jump in the strange hyperventilating-hiccuping hybrid it had been doing before. He had never thought of utilizing his love of logic to calm himself down, but if he was being honest, it seemed to be working fairly decently. Silently, in his head, he began to recite the periodic table in order, although he got stumped at nitrogen. Feeling his heart begin to race again, his mind reached out and clasped onto Celynne's words like they were a lifeline and he, Westley, dangling over the cliff as Inigo pulled him up to safety. Although he normally would have been too proud to ask for help, maybe today would be an exception. After all, he had just cried in front of a complete stranger- how much weirder could it get? 

Her words were cast out to him, and he clung onto them as they dragged him back into the harsh throes of reality. Gasping softly, as if he had just risen above the surface of the waters he had been drowning in for the past few minutes, his hands going to his face. Gently, he dabbed the tears away from his face with the pads of her fingertips, sniffing again. "I... 谢谢," Elijah said quietly, not trusting his voice to go any louder.

Ah, so they were switching back to English- at least, for now. Scratching his head from embarrassment, he cleared his throat quietly as he tried to collect himself. He supposed that she must have been one of those people who knew everything there was to know, yet still couldn't communicate properly with everyday people. Street smarts versus book smarts, and all Celynne seemed to have were book smarts. "Elijah Huang," he said quietly, knowing that she should at least vaguely recognize his last name. The Huangs were a prominent family in the British pureblood-community, as well as in the business world, so there was a good chance that she had at least heard his last name before.

Where were his manners? His mother would've balked at his lack of proper etiquette. "And yourself?" he asked her, his voice beginning to become steadier the more he spoke. Thank god, because he didn't know if he would be able to live it down if his voice started to crack. He supposed that the best plan of attack, then, was to move past his strange outburst without really acknowledging its existence and to continue on with their lives, like nothing had even happened. Crying? What crying? There had been no crying here recently, most especially out of Elijah. Nothing strange or out of the ordinary had happened at all.

"I... I was going to go to the kitchens," Elijah continued quietly, casting a glance towards the shelves of the library, where he had been searching for information about house-elves not ten minutes ago. "To find... 我要吃中国的食物。我觉得，如果今天不吃传统的食物..." He trailed off here, not sure how to describe the feeling. It was a weird mix between heartbreak and regret, like he would be caught with his hand inside the cookie jar, guilty of skipping out on tradition. It wasn't something his mother ever would've wanted him to skip, a meal as important and meaningful as this one.

"你要跟我吃，吗？" He asked suddenly, glancing at the girl. "我们不是血亲，可是中国还是我们两儿的祖国。” Elijah supposed that, considering that this situation couldn't possibly get any weirder, he might as well just extend an invitation to the girl to dine with him. They certainly weren't related, by any means, so it wouldn't be like eating with his family in any way, shape, or form... but it was better than no one. They were both Chinese, and surely, that was enough to connect the two of them through some sort of bond.

He just needed someone to be there for him tonight, stranger-danger be damned.

谢谢 = thank you
我要吃中国的食物。我觉得，如果今天不吃传统的食物 = I want to eat Chinese food. I think, if today, I eat traditional food...
你要跟我吃，吗 = Do you want to eat with me?
我们不是血亲，可是中国还是我们两儿的祖国 = We are not blood relatives, but China is our motherland

心血來潮.

Her anxious soliloquy was cut short quickly as  he responded--well, even if it was awkward, at least he had deigned to not mention it and responded without fuss. Elijah Huang--the first name stemming from the Hebrew bible, latinized into Elias later, she remembered. The surname, she couldn't quite tell completely, but it was most likely 黃, the imperial color yellow Chinese characters. An interesting name, one that piqued her interest at the very least. "Pleased to meet you, Elijah," the girl smiled with a little flourish of her hand and a dip of her chin. All right, this was all right, a little more in her comfort zone, where she was more certain of what she could control. Elijah's voice seemed to be steadying too. A little spark of pride rushed through her--she'd successfully comforted someone for once; that was an achievement. "My name is Celynne Gray. Or Cel."  

Svana had,  it seemed, had a lot of fun while making Cel pore helplessly over pages and pages of Pureblood name. It was all about Purebloods to Svana, even if she didn't outright curse the Muggles--Pureblood etiquette, Pureblood class, Pureblood knowledge. You're a Pureblood, she would admonish as Cel stepped out of line or did something unladylike. You're a Pureblood, she reminded her as the girl tried in vain to memorize the endless documents and lists of names, names, names, blood, names. Why did it all even matter? I thought you were a Ravenclaw, Svana chided her. Yeah, she was a Ravenclaw. She valued wisdom and knowing about the world, not memorizing lists of useless titles. But it had paid off, even if she'd give the knowledge up in a heartbeat, and she was relatively sure that she recognized Huang as a Pureblood name. 

They'd done their best to quell the drama and gossip that surrounded Cel's surfacing, but at least a few whispered had gotten around--enough to get the gist of the story across, but not enough to unearth most of the story. What they really wanted to avoid were blown-out-of-proportion rumors that would reflect badly on the name. All that they hadn't reined  in was the existence of the new child in the family and the death of her mother years ago in California--one of the last in the Selwyn line, actually.  It was bound to be exposed sooner or later. More and more people were finding out about the details; she doubted that many more students would care that much. Besides, she was curious to see how much this Elijah knew at this point.

Quickly, though, the conversation flipped back into Chinese. That was fine. She was fine. Switching to English on her part hadn't been annoying, had it? Too late. Hopefully it hadn't been. A pang of sympathy rang through her like a rustle of air through wind chimes. Not only sympathy, actually—perhaps she felt a little relatable, if not completely. The Asian half of her heritage stemmed back quite far, and with all the drama that had taken place, most of her history, before or after the obliviation, was nothing short of confounding. Chinese food, though—good, genuine Chinese food—that she hadn't eaten in quite a while. The Grays' house elves had attempted, once, but it hadn't been the same. Would never be the same, with Svana directing them, instead of someone from the country itself.  

These house elves, though, were very much different from the ones serving in the Gray Family. They could, perhaps, be asked...? Cel tugged absentmindedly at a strand of messy hair, then twirled it, the fibers springing back up in the barely-there S waves, contrasting sharply with the usual pin-straight, smooth Chinese hair trope. Most likely she should have come up with an actual idea herself, instead of sitting here and drowning herself in calligraphy ink. Brooding in the library tended not to get her anywhere, although she already did it far more than she should. It was easier to slip into another world, after all, than to confront anything, and the vellichor of the older bookshelves was something strangely comforting to the young Ravenclaw, as cliche and boring as that might seem.

Surprise flickered over Cel's face as she was given an invitation—an invitation to join in. Her head tilted slowly to one side, hands coming up to brush way the hair that consequently fell into her vision. "まだ食べ—" wait, no, wrong language— "나는 아직—" crapcrapcrap— "我也還沒吃飯。" There we go. And that was embarrassing. She brushed it off, as always, and continued. Well, how else was she supposed to correct the mistakes? Glitching into other languages was a normal occurrence for her and for other hyperpolyglots, but not one that most people saw every day. "Um... sorry. 可以啊。 我也是沒什麼重要的事情要幹的。“ The girl neglected to correct that she was technically not Chinese but Taiwanese; if he did come from the mainland, the most likely response would probably be a confused denial of an existent differentiation, and she really didn't need to get into that right now. Besides, her accent likely gave most of it away already, for even if he hadn't identified it as Taiwanese, it was clear that she wasn't a mainlander. Tonight wasn't a night for controversy but unity.

Certainly dining with a near-stranger on the eve of Lunar New Year was quite strange. The night was supposed to be a unification with family, when people from around the world would book plane tickets frantically to see the family that they had missed for most of the year. It was probably the most important Chinese holiday out of them all, actually; when others weren't celebrated, people turned to the new year, and it felt strange to eat with a person that was almost as far as family as could be instead of with blood relatives seated around a circular table. But honestly, half her blood relatives sucked, and at least she would be eating with someone at all—eating good traditional food that she hadn't eaten in forever, too, not just the basic white rice that people would use to attempt to mimic oriental cuisine.

Hogwarts' house elves could make anything happen, though. "我們可能可以到廚房去找食物，" Cel suggested, if that hadn't been thought of already, which it probably had been. Couldn't hurt to vocalize, anyway. Probably. Argh. "學校的...the house elves here work magic." How was she supposed to say house elves in Chinese? This was something she had never learned, but that she could... and there went her wandering mind. Maybe tonight wouldn't suck too much after all. Maybe... maybe it would actually be okay, or even more than okay.

心血來潮 = Chinese idiom, on a whim
黃 = Yellow
まだ食べ OR 나는 아직 OR 我也還沒吃飯 = well the first two are unfinished beginnings of 'I haven't eaten yet either' and the third is the complete sentence in the correct language
可以啊。 我也是沒什麼重要的事情要幹的。= Sure. I'm not doing much else tonight anyway.
我們可能可以到廚房去找食物 = naybe we can go to the Kitchens to look for food
學校的 = the school's (unfinished sentence because how do you say house elves in Chinese halp)

Gray. Why did that sound familiar? His guess was that he had heard his mother say something about them, or perhaps it was Celestine... but regardless, it was most likely that it was a pureblood name. Many students here at Hogwarts were, after all, of pure blood- not that Elijah expected anything less. Europe had to have the highest concentration of wizards and witches in the world; it wasn't anything like China, where the magical were few and far between. The Ravenclaw in front of him was pureblood, then, and clearly from a good family, if her clothes were to be judged off of. It was nice to put a name on the face in front of him as well, although he hesitated when he tried to decide on which name to call her. If he went with Cel, it would make it seem like they were already friends- or, at least, he trusted her and liked her enough to use a friendly nickname with her. On the other hand, Elijah decided that Celynne was a rather formal and uptight name, even if it did hold traces of something whimsical, something more bohemian than the traditional pureblood upraising. With a quick mental note, he decided to go with Celynne- better to stay formal than to overstep, even if she did freely offer up the nickname.

His face creased in confusion, however, as Celynne started spouting off random words. They sounded... similar to Chinese, yet not anywhere close, either. Did she speak... more than just English and Chinese? And obviously, he had to overanalyze her words in actual Chinese to make up for her lack of information given to him, and the 'vibes' he got from her words worried him. While it was likely that he was reading too much into it, but it sounded like she was merely gracing him with her presence, not that she actually wanted to be there; that she was only going along with it out of pity, and because she simply had nothing better to do. Elijah hated feeling like he was less than, like he was someone's last option and not their first. The very corners of his mouth twitched and tightened, the barest signal that he was even vaguely upset about anything at all.


Perhaps it was unhealthy that he kept all of his feelings bottled away beneath the surface, but it was just who he was. He had always thought of emotions as weakness, and weakness meant that he had a breaking point. Of course, everyone had breaking points, pressure points where if you pushed hard enough, you could make them do just about anything. For him, it was obvious- incredibly obvious; for him, it was his sister. It would always be his sister. He loved her more than anything in the world, more than he'd ever admit. However, outside of her... well, he loved his family, obviously, but his sister meant more to him. He still couldn't help but feel like he was being pushed away, like she would rather be doing something else, rather than spending her dinner with a random first-year student who just randomly happened upon her at the library.

Celynne offered up a suggestion that was rather obvious, but was understandable- however, it was clarifying, and that was alright in his book. Miscommunication was the main source of arguments and disputes, and clarification was always key, especially when it was a conversation between strangers. He nodded, inclining his head just slightly. He could feel her hesitation as she fished for words, and he immediately turned, getting up abruptly to go prowl amongst the shelves. He returned a few minutes later with a small English to Chinese dictionary in his hands. "对不起... 我查了这字典，'house-elves' 就可以翻译成 '家养小精灵'。" The words felt a little strange on his tongue, but he knew that he would get used to it. Setting the book on a reshelving cart nearby, he glanced at Celynne again with a raised eyebrow.

"那么..." he said slowly, thinking. "我们就去厨房找饭，吧。" Glancing at Celynne, he slowly started towards the table again, moving to help her clean up her stuff. It was the chivalrous thing to do, after all- he did not believe that chivalry was dead, not for a second. He lapsed back into English for this part, far too lazy to try and think of everything in Chinese. Although he was fluent, he still leaned towards English when he had to talk a lot. Quietly, he added, "Do you know what you want to eat? I don't know what your family does for Chinese New Year..." His hands moved quickly and deftly, organizing the things on the table into neat and logical piles for Celynne to pack away into her bag. "But my family, we go all out." 

His hands hovered over the table slightly, before he withdrew them and shoved them deep into the pockets of his jeans. He still felt uncomfortable talking about his family, even with people he knew well enough to consider family, like Daniel. Taking a slightly shaky breath, Elijah pushed himself to take a leap of faith, deciding to trust a little bit in the girl across from him. "Duck, fish, dumplings, spring rolls, 长面..." Well, he said that he wasn't going to use Chinese, but he supposed that there were too many traditional foods that he didn't know the English equivalant for. "年糕... sometimes my sister convinces my parents to eat 火锅, although it's only happened twice... there's so much we do. We can't do it all here at Hogwarts, of course, but... I mean, it's only Chinese New Year once a year. This is..." He hesitated, glancing at Celynne briefly. "This is pretty much the only holiday I truly celebrate. I can't not celebrate this." 

He waited until Celynne collected all of her things, before offering her the smallest of smiles. "Ready to go?" he asked quietly, running his hand along the strap of his bag and pulling it closer to him. Why did this feel as nerve-wracking as his parents' dinner parties, or a first date? Taking a deep breath, he convinced himself to just calm down. Tonight was Chinese New Year- there was no room from doubts and second-guessing tonight.

对不起... 我查了这字典，'house-elves' 就可以翻译成 '家养小精灵'。= Sorry... I looked through the dictionary, 'house-elves' can be translated into 'domestic elves'.
那么... = Then...
我们就去厨房找饭，吧。= We should go to the kitchens to find food, then.
长面 = traditional long noodles
年糕 = nian gao, a traditional rice-cake-thing

𝚎𝚡𝚒𝚝 𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚓𝚊𝚑

碎碎平安。

Cel tilted her head, confused, as Elijah left her vicinity maybe a little abruptly. Her brow furrowed as she considered the implications of the gesture, what might have prompted it: she knew that her company was perhaps a bit—okay, a lot awkward, maybe not the most desirable at times, but people usually did excuse themselves before taking off, or at least insult her. Assail might have been preferred to an abrupt exit; the not knowing ate away at her torturously: what did she do to drive him away? He seemed to be quite well-mannered, much more than some of the other students here, was it something she said?

Absentmindedly she picked her brush up again, elbow leaving the table, drawing another character. 黃, quite a common Chinese surname, probably Elijah’s, though you could never be sure with Chinese—too many 同音字. A lot of different characters could have similar or same 拼音 forms, too. Was there a different Huang aside from 黃, yellow, the main color of the emperor? Well, there could be 謊, but she didn’t know if that was a surname—if it was, it probably wouldn’t be a very popular one, due to its meaning. There were a million more characters, honestly, and she didn’t have the time or patience to remember and consider them all.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Elijah’s return—with a little dictionary, too. So that was where he had gone. She felt her shoulders go down from the highness that she hadn’t even realized existed, jitters in her mind settling into relative peacefulness. Ink dripped from her brush as she paused, then rested her elbow on the table again, moving her hand to rest the utensil again. Ow, her arm ached. Regardless—well, that was nice of him to do… and it finally occurred to her that she should maybe stop thinking that everything meant that everyone hated her.

Well, it wasn’t entirely her fault. The last time she’d met someone while minding her own business in the library was at the beginning of the school year. She didn’t make friends very often, it was true, and maybe it was due to the aura of individualism that she’d woven around herself whenever she was in here, but last time she’d lost one of her closest—Ami, piercing the tension in the air like a bright amber javelin, red in all her fury… that wasn’t something she would think about tonight, though. Tonight was for thinking about something else less stressful.

Yes, this boy was definitely very nice. Cel even offered a little smile of gratitude as he moved to help her clean up—ink was a tricky thing to deal with—a gesture that should not be taken lightly, if given by such a girl, distracted in her own thoughts. Her chair screeched as it dragged across the floor, making her narrow her eyes in a grimace, but it was nothing compared to the clicks and clacks of brush and ink occasionally pierced by the thump of books and crackle of parchment that followed. Silently she wished that a House Elf from the Gray Manse would show up—one of the pros of being a Pureblood, she supposed, although she still found it difficult to think of the mansion as her home.

Honestly, the worst part of doing anything was cleaning up.

Still, cleaning up was made a lot easier when there was someone else helping her. And even though her skin had prickled with unease as usual when the conversation had begun, she felt herself slowly easing into the interaction—something that was happening more and more these days, actually. The eyes she felt glued to her back had loosened a bit, the tightness of her jaw softening. It was easier now.

Well, good heavens, she was about to sneak into the Kitchens for food.

Her gaze pivoted up for a moment as Cel noticed an unstable breath after a sentence, then darted away. Trouble talking about family, then? That was something she might be able to relate to, but whenever questioned, well, a regular Pureblood life wasn’t the most interesting, and people didn’t like to focus on things that weren’t interesting, so that was what she let them see. The girl slung her bag over her shoulder, tapping the ground a couple of times with the toe of her shoe before resting her weight on the other foot. She wasn’t about to judge.

“My family is…” The Ravenclaw paused, at a loss, then continued, “…complex, I suppose. But, um, I guess…” Crap, she needed to add some kind of suggestion of her own, or else she’d break the flow of the conversation; that was how conversations worked, right? Someone had once told her that she needed to stop analyzing human interaction like it was some kind of scientific experiment. Screw that, life was her scientific experiment. “I guess because I don’t eat a lot, we don’t usually get a lot of food, but sometimes we do go for a small 火鍋. I’m not… my family isn’t from Mainland China, you know, mostly we’re Taiwanese, so some things might not be as familiar. Maybe we could… we could think of food when we get there, or on the way? I’m going to forget most of what we brainstorm otherwise.”

Talking about her old family way back in California five years ago was a strange endeavor, to say the least. She rarely tried to remember her life there, but the oriental smells rising from steaming platters, the bubble of hot pot soup, the little netted spoons use to lift delicious 豬血糕 from the soup pot, the texture of 豆沙包 on her tongue—well, it wasn’t all that difficult to remember and relive. She… hadn’t tasted that food in years, actually. The House Elves rarely took orders from her mother, as a ghost, and, well, god forbid her stepfather showed up. Fittingly, her heart fell a little at Elijah’s added note after his suggestion—she understood, she really did, it was just difficult to express that. Maybe she should just say so? “I understand.” That… crap, that sounded really weird. But she whitewashed it, giving an affirmative to Elijah’s final query—a true one, too, for a taste test of the past. “Ready. Let’s go.”

Reducio

traditional = simplified (if any) = pinyin = english
黃 = huang = yellow, also a really common surname
同音字 = tong yin zi = homonyms
謊 = 谎 = huang = a character pronounced identically to 黃 except pitch
火鍋 = 火锅 = huo guo = hot pot
豬血糕 = 猪血糕 = zhu xie gao = a kind of delicious sticky rice thing traditionally but sometimes not conventionally held together by blood, translated literally to pig blood cake despite the fact that normally chicken blood was used
豆沙包 = dou sha bao = the literal most delicious thing ever, a type of bun with sweet egg filling

exeunt